


Hug of Life

by Aaronna



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Gen, Hakoda (Avatar) is a Good Parent, Hakuddles, Hurt Zuko (Avatar), Hypothermia, Sharing Body Heat, Worried Hakoda, Zuko (Avatar) is an Idiot, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:35:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25633663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aaronna/pseuds/Aaronna
Summary: Zuko was hypothermic after his time in the freezer, told no one, then collapses in his room on the airship. Hakoda and Chit Sang help.
Relationships: Hakoda & Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 28
Kudos: 949





	Hug of Life

**Author's Note:**

> This came to me while I was at work, so I wrote it and posted it.

Hakoda had nearly been asleep when he heard it. At first he couldn't place the sound, but then he realized it was the sound of a body hitting the floor. He wasted no time grabbing the knife Sokka had lent him and crept out of his room to investigate.

They had searched the airship before they stole it, but there was a chance there was still an enemy onboard. He wasn't sure whose room was beside his, but it hardly mattered if they were being attacked, so he silently pushed the door open. His chest clenched when he saw the prone form of the fire prince on the floor.

Looking for signs of the perpetrator, he moved to check on the teenager, hoping he wasn't too badly harmed. He almost gasped in dismay when his fingers touched cold flesh. It was the thrum of a slow, weak heartbeat that convinced him he wasn't standing over a corpse.

It then dawned on the panicked warrior that a body doesn't cool that quickly after death, especially not a firebender. That realization only brought more questions to mind. Was there actually an attacker or had the boy collapsed? Why was the boy ice cold?

Another look around the empty cabin had him doubting an attack from a person, but a spirit was still a possibility. What he did know was, he needed to get the bender warm. He wasn't a healer and he knew next to nothing about how warm a firebender was supposed to be, but he knew that if the prince wasn't even shivering, he was dangerously cold.

Hakoda thanked the spirits he wasn't the only adult on the airship and that the other adult was a firebender. Given the time, Chit Sang should be in the boiler room, the warmest place in the vessel. All he had to do was move the boy there.

The chief pulled the blankets off the bed and pulled them over his shoulders like a cloak. Gently, he pulled the kid off the floor and held him upright, chest to chest, and pulled the blankets over the boy in his arms. It was an awkward position, but allowed for maximum contact between their torsos and kept the cold blood of the limbs away from the weakened heart.

It took longer than the father would have liked to get to the boiler room, but he got there eventually. He didn't have to say a word to his fellow prisoner, the man jumped up and wrapped himself around the prince's back. Hakoda gave a sigh of relief as the larger man helped him move the boy to a somewhat comfortable spot on the floor by the furnace.

"How in Agni's name did he fight off the guards and his sister while this cold? I thought the royals must have had some bending secret to stay warm in extreme cold… Prince Zuko is a tough, stubborn kid…"

Hakoda gave him a puzzled look. "What do you mean? You know why he is too frozen to even shiver?"

"Thats right, you weren't there for that bit. He got himself locked in one of the freezers as part of our first plan. The kids gave up on that plan when they heard you were coming."

Given the way he started rubbing the back of his head, the water tribesman knew there was more to that story and it wasn't very favorable to the older bender.

"Tough kid, indeed."

That got him a soft chuckle. "Always has been. Not many children could have survived everything he's been through…"

"We don't hear much about him in the water tribe, just that he had been given the job to catch the Avatar."

"Kid was never supposed to find the Avatar. Not that something like that has ever stopped him. No one thought he'd live to see his first birthday, that he'd end up a bender, or that he would survive getting this beauty." The man gestured to the scar over the boy's eye. "He is a fighter. Always has been."

After that, they sat in silence. Every so often, Chit Sang would get up, bend fire into the furnace for a bit, then return to help warm up their charge. It didn't take too long for the prince to start shivering, but getting him warm enough for those to stop seemed to take an eternity.

By the time the sun rose, the prince was back in his bed, carefully tucked under blankets. No one but the adults even knew it had happened. In a way, Hakoda was glad of that. It meant the fire prince wouldn't feel indebted to either of them and the father would get to see the fighter he helped save with that hug of life fight for what was right.

The chief just hoped the boy's stubbornness didn't get him killed before he truly had a chance to become the good man he was clearly destined to be.


End file.
